When I began building this
site, I thought it would take a few hours of probing, hunting,
gathering, and collating. As with so many expectations about
the heavy metal band known the world warmed over as Spinal Tap,
I was wrong. It took hours upon hours, days upon days, cold beers
upon cold beers. In the end, I found myself with little more
understanding of the phenomenon known as Tapmania or the Tapheads
who are caught up in it  only a sickening sense that I
had wasted several months of my quickly shortening life on a
band whose only distinction is that they play loud and their
lyrics sometimes rhyme. More significantly, perhaps, is that
with each passing year, more of Tap's fans are learning to read.
Thus this site.What I hoped to do was document
every ounce of creative energy and tension that Tap has inspired
in its fans and other bands (none of whom you've heard of or,
perhaps, even exist). My friends, after viewing the 40,000-word
draft of the A to Zed guide
and literally wiping the glaze from their eyes, accused me of
being anal-retentive about Tap. No, I replied, I am anal-inventive.I'm not alone in my appreciation
for the English rockers that dedicated fans know simply as "them
guys." Marty DiBergi's well-received documentary about the
band's 1982 U.S. tour inspired widespread interest in Tap, whose
fortunes were sagging. As the New York Times noted during the
band's 1992 Break Like the Wind tour, "the impact of This
is Spinal Tap cannot be underestimated. Fans can recite scenes
verbatim. Phrases such as 'It's such a fine line between clever
and stupid' [sic] have become part of the rock vocabulary. Songs
from the movie are considered classics." Rolling Stone,
on the other hand, once described Tap's music as "simple
and brainless." So opinions vary.On Tap's now-defunct 900 phone
line, David noted that "it's important to know everything
you can about the band," and with this A to Zed guide, Tapheads
of all persuasions (including the easily persuaded) can learn
everything they ever wanted to know about Tap  and more.
Much more. Much much more. Much much much much more. So much
more that if you try to swallow it all, you'll need an antacid,
one of those little cherry ones are nice, or the plain if you
don't like fruit flavors.The Tap basics are
all here to be digested, from aluminum foil to miniature bread
to Yes I Can. Every morsel that could be squeezed was squeezed,
including outtakes and commentary on the 1994 Criterion release
of DiBergi's rockumentary (if you will), dozens of forgotten
magazine and newspaper articles, and the official band biography,
Inside Spinal Tap. Its author, Peter Occhiogrosso,
has reviewed the A to Zed collection and even called a priest
in an attempt to have it blessed. Because of Tap's well-known
contract with Satan to sell their souls, their mother's souls
and their sister's puppies' souls for fleeting fame, this proved
impossible. The guide remains damned.One of chief criticisms of
DiBergi's film was that he chose not to portray the illicit drug
use or wild sex that is commonly associated with heavy metal
bands, although more of this activity is apparent in outtakes.
With the exception of keyboardist Viv Savage and drummer Mick
Shrimpton, the entourage is never shown ingesting anything more
harmful than alcohol and marijuana. And only one groupie was
captured on film with her clothes off as she spent a great deal
of time looking for a lost contact lens in the nude, apparently
so she would be able to see where she left her knickers.DiBergi would later explain
that he left the drugs and sex on the cutting room floor because
by the time he caught up with Tap in 1982, there wasn't much
of it to film. David, Nigel and Derek had been together for 15
years and had grown out of the experimenting phase that overtakes
many younger bands. They also may not have been able to afford
many drugs or impress many groupies, seeing that half of their
tour was canceled and they tried to market a black album.But we're not here to
pick nits. David, Nigel and Derek, whatever their faults, are
good people. They have risen above the everyday head-banging
bullshit to capture our hearts and wallets with overpriced, shoddy
goods. It's as if they were our big toe, which we stubbed on
a brick, then when we bent over in pain, we saw a dime and banged
our head on a low shelf trying to pick it up. That, really, somehow,
sums up Tap: A painful journey toward a tiny reward that's out
of reach. The Village Voice once noted that "David, Nigel
and Derek aren't stupid, exactly, but they're certainly clods,
average guys who parlay minimal musical talent, dogged ambition
and the luck of the zeitgeist into 17-years-and-counting of lowbrow
fame and fortune."Despite the band's disdain
for DiBergi's documentary, Entertainment Weekly credits it with
making Spinal Tap "a household name" (although only
in homes that aren't occupied). During my research, the lone
poor review of This is Spinal Tap I could find appeared in Creem,
a magazine read chiefly by teenage boys who are still mastering
the air guitar. John Mendelssohn wrote that the film was "a
self-indulgent bore" and "a maddening exercise in squandered
opportunities." In addition, he felt it had "long,
long stretches without anything even remotely amusing being said
or done," that "you get tired of Nigel, the most brainlessly
insipid lead guitarist in the history of British rock" and
that "the music is atrocious. You'll spend lots of your
time watching This is Spinal Tap yawning or wishing you'd brought
earplugs."They can't print that, can
they?